IMDb meta-data is 1h and 47m, rated 6.0 by 4,500 cinemtaizens.
Genre: krimi.
DNA: France.
Verdict: Incoherent.
Tagline: Meh.
This is the IMDB summary: ‘The renowned psychiatrist Lilian Steiner mounts a private investigation into the death of one of her patients, whom she is convinced has been murdered.’
The local advertising labeled it a mystery comedy. Such was the bait.
The laughs, if there were any, were on me because the switch was immediate into stylish incoherence.
There was too little and too much of everything, and a last act in which new information is used to explain the previous one and half hours by introducing a new character. Aristotle neither nor Knox would approve. All that went before proves to be irrelevant, the cigarette smoking man, the constant rain, the hypnotist, the pregnant daughter, the Nazi son, the walking backwards in Central Park clip, and so on. If you were paying attention to all those clues, you wasted your time. I know I did.
I went to be amused, entertained, informed, or diverted and I wasn’t. More fool me.
It was so convoluted at end I am not sure what happened or why. But I know I don’t care. No, I don’t know what the title has to do with anything. But I did wonder how a psychiatrist could get to be renown. Isn’t their work supposed to be private, very. I concluded that the copywriter did not know what the word means.
I did re-new my celluloid acquaintance with Daniel Auteil whom I haven’t seen in years. I also savoured the brief look into the Bibliothèque Mazarine which I used to walk by in my Sorbonne days. I don’t think I ever dared enter. It is based on the eponymous 17th Century Cardinal’s collection. He was chief minister to Louis XIV for twenty years. It is the oldest public library in France.
We saw the movie at the Dendy Newtown Theatre 5 row G 9 and 10 seats. N.B. entry is from the front and upstairs to seats. There is only one aisle on the left (is that permitted by fire regulations?) facing the screen, or on the right as one enters. Aisles seats are 1 and 2 and midway would be best another time. I’ve been caught on this lack of a second aisle and front entry before. Now I have a second time maybe I will avoid it next time.